Post
by Stuck123 » Tue Oct 07, 2014 12:00 am
Hello, I received a refusal letter for my ILR application on Friday morning and I will try to appeal the decision. My application was rejected for 2 issues.
The first, I am quite confident is an internal error. The paragraphs says this "On 5th January 2009 you arrived in the United Kingdom with a UK Ancestry visa valid from 5th September 2009 until 5th March 2014. Leave to enter expired on 5th March 2014" They go on to say that I am an overstayer.
All of these dates are incorrect. I arrived in the UK on the 5th of May, 2009, and my visa was valid from the 3rd of May, 2009, expiring on the 3rd of May, 2014. I can recall quite vividly applying for the visa in the middle of March, 2009, having my fingerprints scanned in April, 2009, and receiving the visa after this, then promptly traveling to the UK. I applied for ILR on the 1st of May, 2014. The problem with the March dates is that my visa was issued in Canada, where the date is written Month/Day. My visa says 5/3, which to a British person would be March 3rd, but I know this is incorrect, as I applied for the visa after this date. I am not sure how I will go about proving this though, any advice on what agency I should contact etc. would be wonderful.
The second issue is that I was in Canada for 217 days between 5th of August 2012 and 11th March 2013. I had stayed in Canada for this long for two reasons, only one of which I referenced in my application as I didn't think the other would be necessary. The first was the illness and death of my Grandmother. She died about a month and a half after I arrived, and then I stayed to be with my Father as he was not doing so well. I have been told that the death of my Grandmother is not enough to justify discounting the absence.
The second reason I had stayed so long, which I did not mention in my application, is that a year earlier in September 2011, I was attacked from behind by a gang of chavs whilst walking down the street on a Monday evening, and I developed some severe emotional issues and anxiety from this event. It became very difficult for me to be in public places for a long time after this, I didn't fully recover from this until the end of last year really. I had felt very safe at my parent's house in Canada, the first time I had felt safe in a year, which made it quite difficult for me to leave.
I am going to obtain a police record of the event, do you think it will be necessary to obtain any more documents? I didn't have any professional help with this as I wanted to self-heal, so there isn't a paper trail apart from the police record, and also a medical record from the night of the attack. Should I try to obtain the medical record? And do you think this will be enough to discount the absence?
I don't know if it will matter, but my parents are moving to Qatar in a couple of weeks, so I don't really have anywhere to go if I get sent back to Canada. Can I mention this? Also, both of my grandparents on my father's side were British, and both on my Mother's side have Scottish surnames. Would I be able to use this to my advantage?
I have until the 17th of October to appeal to the First-Tier Tribunal. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time.